Farewell Startrek-games.com and Post Rescue

As you may have seen or read elsewhere, IGN has decided to shut down a number of sites it hosted, including Chessmess' wonderful, long-lived Star Trek Games site. Although the focus over the past decade had primarily been Trek-themed PC and videogames, Chess was just beginning to expand into other areas such as tabletop gaming and online sims. I had made a few contributions recently and was planning on making it a regular gig to cover non-RPG tabletop games I don't cover here.

With STG gone, I'll probably occasionally include coverage of these games -- such as the Star Fleet Universe, rare Tsukuda Japanese Trek wargames and the old Star Fleet Battle Manual -- here at Groknard as as well. I do want to thank Chess for the opportunity to contribute to STG and for all the work he's done in Trek gaming over the years, and wish him the best.

There was one post I did in March that I liked a lot, so I'm going to republish it here for the sake of posterity.
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Updates from the Star Fleet Universe
Originally posted on Star Trek Games, March 16, 2009

Are you familiar with the Star Fleet Universe games from Amarillo Design Bureau? You should be!

Since this column on tabletop Trek games is still relatively new, I thought I should introduce the Star Fleet Universe (SFU) before getting to news about its latest products. You have probably heard about their signature game, Star Fleet Battles (SFB), if for no other reason than it having been the basis of Interplay’s 1999 videogame, Starfleet Command and its sequels Starfleet Command II: Empires at War and Starfleet Command: Orion Pirates.

SFB is a tabletop wargame of the “hex-and-counter” flavor, designed in the mid-70s by Stephen V. Cole. It was initially released in 1979 by Task Force Games and under Cole’s guidance (and subsequently through his company ADB), SFB has thrived through various versions over the decades. In fact, the entire product line has grown to include pewter starship gaming miniatures, a faster and simpler SFB-like line of games called Federation Commander, the RPG Prime Directive, and the action card game Star Fleet Battle Force and more, all set in the Star Fleet Universe.

Although based on elements of Star Trek, the Star Fleet Universe adheres to an alternate canon. It was originally built upon the legacy of TOS, the Animated Series and the 1975 book The Star Fleet Technical Manual by Franz Joseph, on which its licensing is based (SFU products are — contrary to myth — licensed through Paramount as well). But the SFU is a different reality, as if Star Trek had taken a different path before the events that started with Star Trek The Motion Picture.

In the SFU, you’ll find the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans. You’ll also find the Kzinti, Orions and many elements unique to the SFU’s history. You won’t find Cardassians, the Borg or the Dominion. For licensing reasons, you also won’t find Kirk, Spock or even the words “Star Trek”. But the world in which the SFU games takes place will definitely look and feel familiar to anyone raised on TOS.

The best way to see if the Star Fleet Universe and its games are for you is to jump in and play… for free! ADB has made available a downloadable starter version from its Federation Commander game system called First Missions. It’s a 34 page PDF manual that includes rules, counters, a map, full color ship cards and scenarios. Just add some 6-sided dice and a friend, and you’ll be ready to take command of a Federation Heavy Crusier or a Klingon D7 Battlecruiser.

If you like it, there are plenty of options available to go further with Federation Commander. There’s a full version Klingon Border game, but if you prefer the Vulcan’s cousins, there’s Romulan Border. If you’re low on funds, consider Academy because you can always move on to Graduation later. The games are very modular and available in such a way that you can easily mix and match and never spend money on what you don’t need. For complete information, check out ADB’s website for Federation Commander and more.

ADB has made some new product announcements across most of its game lines:

Star Fleet Battles Master Annex File - Master Ship Chart, Master Fighter Chart, Master Gunboat Chart, complete Sequence of Play, and all of the other annexes and data tables for SFB, updated to include the past four years of products. Now available.

Star Fleet Battles Galactic Conquest Rulebook (4th Ed) - A printed manual intended for use with the “Galactic Conquest” campaign engine for Star Fleet Battles.

Prime Directive: Federation - Supplement for the Prime Directive RPG, detailing the extensive history of the Federation, the history and culture a dozen member races, military organizations, medals, starships, politics, intelligence agencies, and so on. The D20 Modern version will be available on April 20, and the GURPS version is scheduled for May 18. (NOTE: obviously, this is out of date. Neither has been released, and no specific date is yet available)

Orion Dreadnought (1/3788 scale miniature) - One of the latest editions to the Starline 2400 series of pewter miniatures, the Orion DN is the biggest pirate ship of all time, and has more guns, more power, and more sheer terror than any other pirate ship.

Finally, ADB and Majestic Twelve Games have announced an agreement to develop Klingon Armada, a Starmada supplement set in the SFU tentatively scheduled for release in the summer of 2009.

Starmada is another extremely popular miniatures boardgame of starship combat, and Klingon Armada will contain all of the rules options, additions, and starship designs necessary to allow players to pit forces of the Klingon Empire against their perpetual enemies, the United Federation of Planets.

I’ll bring you more information on this as it becomes available.

But wait! There's more.....

Prime Directive RPG Series - Introduction

Over the past few months, I've been perusing various publications from the Prime Directive series of role-playing games. For those who don't know, PD is part of the Star Fleet Universe (SFU), derived from Star Trek and the background of tabletop and computer games such as Star Fleet Battles, Federation Commander, Starfleet Command and more. For licensing reasons, the SFU is based on elements of The Original Series, The Animated Series, and The Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual, but mostly its own mythology built over decades. In terms of this blog (despite its license with Paramount), Prime Directive may be "not Trek", but it undeniably is a way to role-play Star Trek.

Some fans would disagree. Since the SFU canon diverges so far from Trek canon, PD is often ignored by fans and gamers. Others feel that the SFU is simply too militaristic for "true" Trek gaming. Although I sympathize with both contentions, I think that both arguments are a bit disingenuous. People still love FASA's Trek (the RPG and the Tactical Combat Simulator), but it diverged from canon, built its own mythology, and completely disconnected shortly after the premiere of The Next Generation. And with the exception of some great homebrews, most Trek RPGs over-emphasize combat and can be just as obsessed with martial aspects and details (when compared to the show itself). As gamers and fans, many of us are attracted towards phaser battles, starship design minutiae, combat against an armada of D-7s and so on. I don't think we're as high-minded as we say we are.

That does not mean the SFU and PD are beyond reproach and a critical examination. I will state up front that I'm no great or long-time fan of the SFU or Amarillo Design Bureau (ADB). They have a passionate fanbase, but I've never been a part of it. I find the quality and value of ADB's products hit or miss, their website is a mess, and their inability to hit a release schedule aggravating. Also annoying is a decidedly conservative flavor of politics which -- for some unfathomable reason -- they feel is important to broadcast (though perhaps they feel it is reflective of and appealing to their primary customer base).

So I do bring some prejudices to this table (my blog), but now they're out in the open, in advance. As a gamer, my opinion is that they have great potential, but make themselves and their products somewhat unapproachable to the gaming community at large. Nevertheless, although there are a few reasons that PD and the SFU are not for everyone as a Trek game setting, I'm not convinced that some of the criticism leveled at it over the years is necessarily "fair and balanced" (heh). As a result of the resurgence of interest in Trek RPGs and as PD is currently the closest thing to an active Trek RPG license, I decided it could not and should not be ignored on this blog.

I was originally going to dive right in to one of the most recent versions of the game, the "Powered by GURPS" version known as GURPS Prime Directive. This was for a few reasons. One, after a few hours of research, it became obvious that it was the only self-contained, economical version of the game. PD D6 does not exist and probably won't exist for some time. PD D20 is confusingly broken up into some products being based on D20 (bad), and others D20 Modern (better), but requiring an expensive out-of-print WOTC book (unacceptable). If I wanted to dive in and get PD and the two supplements Klingons and Romulans, the GURPS version seemed to be the way to go.

GURPS also had the much nicer cover art.

So I bought those, but I also got the D20 Modern version so that I could compare the two on Groknard (I didn't yet know how difficult it was going to be to grab the D20 Modern Core book for a reasonable price). I could always resell both later, I thought. Then I just got silly. I decided I had to get the original 1993 Task Force Games version (pictured above right), and maybe some of those supplements. I ended up getting them all (but at a really reasonable price here and there, probably $25 bucks for all 6 books).

Side note: I've never been the completist collector type, but I'm probably approaching a hundred books and supplements of one sort or another for all six Trek RPG systems, including PD, not including miniatures products. All that's left is one LUG book and a few FASA modules. That's insane. Anyway.

So, as it turns out, I am going to start with a review of TFG's PD1 after all. I actually found it to be pretty cool, if not limited. I wish I'd given it a chance back in the day. That'll be the next part of the series. I'll eventually get around to ADB's GURPS and PD20M versions, but I've got some rarer FASA material I'd also like to get in here soon as well. Maybe by the time I finish it all, PD for D6 (and HERO, and Savage Worlds) will be out. Maybe even some version, any version, of PD Federation.

But as sort of a quickie review, I wanted to share some stuff that came up in a post of RPGnet this week. If you're starting to get bored, you can leave. I won't mind...

A reader there asked about Prime Directive D6: I've been waiting for this for ages. Is anyone around here "in the know" with regards to when we might see this? Or, should I just go ahead and pick up the D20 version (cringe) and get to converting (thus decreasing the already narrow chance I'll get to play it)? He went on to say later that he really had no huge objection to getting a D20 version and converting it to D6. He just didn't want to do it and have the D6 version come out the next day (ha). Also, he asked, had anyone reviewed one of the D20 versions?

A Groknard reader (hi Lee!) turned on the Grok Signal, and this (in part) was my reply:

"...I can go ahead and share my initial thoughts. Just keep in mind that I've read them, not played them.

Initially (as you might suspect from my purchase), I thought the GURPS version was going to be the better purchase. It's "Powered by GURPS", so it's completely self-contained (unlike PD D20M which required me to haunt eBay until I could get D20M). That is an advantage, but not a decisive one. The fact is that the "fluff" of the SFU and additional material -- the included adventure, the art, descriptions of the SFU and species, the deckplans for the trader vessel -- are nearly identical between the two books. GURPS has a few more pages (and smaller type), but it uses them to detail combat, movement, etc based on GURPS lite. I would argue that there is "more game" in PD D20M only because you have to have D20M to fill in the blanks. Of course, you'll spend more unless you already have D20M Core, which is the point.

Obviously, the biggest difference is really in character creation, class-based (D20M) vs point buy (GURPS). IMO, PD D20M has the potential for richer characters ("Rigellian Dedicated Hero Federation Marshall Security Specialist") than the GURPS approach of Advantage - Disadvantage - Skill, and I suspect PD D20M would probably port more easily to D6's template style, but I could be wrong.

It also appears that the D20M version is a little more extensive with details and tables on equipment, and it feels a little better organized. Jonathan (ed: Jonathan Thompson, Battlefield Press), if you're reading this, I think you did a fine job.

Do I regret my GURPS purchases? No, not at all, because I generally don't care for D20, and I like the self-contained lite approach of the GURPS books. I also really wanted the Klingon and Romulan books, which were written for D20 but not D20M (though now I wonder if there is much of a difference in crunch), so I leaned towards GURPS.

But, in retrospect, I am genuinely impressed with how well the SFU (and, I'm going to say it!!! STAR TREK! hahaha, sue me Steve Cole! j/k) mapped onto D20 Modern. There's even a few ideas I want to snatch from one system to the other, so I'm happy with all of them (though I wouldn't encourage anyone to buy all I did... it was for my blog).

If you have and like D20 Modern, get PD D20M. If you prefer D20 and/or classes in general, get PD D20M. If money is no object and you accept you'll have to buy D20 Modern for a full game, get PD D20M. It wins by a nose (except for the cover art, sorry!).

I'd say in all other circumstances, you probably want to get PD GURPS. There simply isn't a huge difference in the content to get hung up about it."

I said a bit more and got snarky with the biggest weakness of PD: the lack of rules for starship combat of all things. ADB expects you to run over to another table and start playing Federation Commander or SFB if you run into a D7. That led to an interesting revelation from Jonathan... that I will save for another time! I want to dig into it with TPTB first.

If you're still reading, I hope you enjoyed what was supposed to be my two-paragraph Friday night post. I just remembered there is still laundry in the dryer, the cats are screaming to be fed, and I have to get some rest for Maker Faire tomorrow! Have a good weekend!

But wait! There's more.....

Star Trek Games Website - Updates from the SFU

I've got a new article up today over at Star Trek Games, introducing readers to ADB's Star Fleet Universe (wargames, RPGs and more), and a round-up of their latest product announcements.

But wait! There's more.....

New Prime Directive RPG Releases from ADB

Looks like the folks over at Amarillo Design Bureau have been super busy lately, and there are a few upcoming releases of interest. I said early on that I probably wouldn't cover the Star Fleet Universe or its Prime Directive RPG much here, but I've changed my mind for a number of reasons.

Primarily, Stephen Cole and ADB have kept the flame burning for Trek tabletop gaming for a long time, 30 frakkin' years! That deserves nothing but respect. Some of the themes and tone of the SFU may differ from Star Trek, but it's properly licensed and the rest is technicality. If my blog is truly "A Retrospective of Star Trek RPGs", then it's incomplete without coverage of these efforts.

I'll also be covering SFU over on my new Tabletop Games column at Star Trek Games, as games such as Star Fleet Battles and Federation Commander have probably had a bigger impact in terms of Trek-themed tabletop gaming than anyone else.

Anyway, news!

Scheduled for 4/20/09: Prime Directive: Federation (d20 Modern), SKU 8702, $24.95 - This manual covers everything you could want to know about those do-gooders of the galaxy, the Federation. Extensive history of the Federation, history and culture a dozen member races, military organizations, medals, starships, politics, intelligence agencies, etc. This release is specifically for the d20 Modern rule system, and PD20M core rules and supplements for the Klingons and Romulans are already available. UPDATE: Thanks to Stephen Cole at ADB for sending me the cover images above and below!

Scheduled for 5/18/09: The long-anticipated GURPS Prime Directive: Federation, (GURPS 4E), SKU 8402, $24.95 - Similar to the above, but adapted to the Generic Universal Role Playing System by Steve Jackson Games. The Core PDGURPS book (200 pages, and includes a complete rules set for GURPS including character creation) and supplements for Klingons and Romulans have been available for awhile. Other supplements such as Tholians and Starships have been mentioned in the past, so hopefully the release of Federation is a sign that things are picking up steam.

Keep an eye out here for more on the past, present and future of Prime Directive.

But wait! There's more.....